Island-Wide Blackout Affects Puerto Rico

According to the electrical service and reporters in Puerto Rico, the entire US territory is currently out of power. According to AEE, the island power company, a “fault was detected on line 50700.” There are no other details at this time on the cause of the outage, but it appears that there is a power lose on one of the main power lines that provides electricity to the island.

AEE also says, “The restoration of electrical service is gradual as we integrate generating units into the system. The last customers could receive the service in an estimated time of 24 to 36 hours from the moment of the event.” They also released a statement on Twitter saying, “The priority for restoring service is the critical burdens of hospitals, Luis Muñoz Marín Airport, AAA pumping systems and banking centers. Then they follow the industries, shops and residences.”

CONFIRMED:
Black out in Puerto Rico.
The entire island is without power. There is “ZERO power generation at this point”, according to a 2nd @AEEONLINE spokesman

A fault was detected on the line 50700 which starts in Aguirre Central

This massive blackout comes months after Hurricane Maria slammed the US Territory on September 20th, knocking out power for most people on the island due to the widespread destruction. In fact, before today’s blackout, still 3 percent of the island was still without power, over half a year later since the hurricane struck, and homes and buildings are still being repaired.

Just last week, one fallen tree was responsible for about 700,000 customers to lose power. This shows just how weak the island’s power infrastructure is.

Here’s an excerpt from the Associated Press:

Angel Figueroa, president of a union that represents power company workers in Puerto Rico, said it appears that a failure on a main line caused the island’s entire electrical grid to shut down to protect itself. Rivera said he worries that such serious power outages are still occurring as the new Atlantic hurricane season, which starts on June 1, approaches. “If there’s a slight storm, we’re going to be worse off than we are right now,” he said.

Live Updates:

3:16PM Thursday: Electrical service has been restored to all customers (97.2%) who were already energized before the general outage yesterday.

7:09AM Thursday: More than 1.1 million customers out of the 1.4 million have power restored in Puerto Rico.

3:04AM Thursday: Power is restored to about half of the island’s customers. Nearly 650,000 customers have the lights back on.

4:58PM: AEE reports that more than 51,000 customers now have electrical service returned.

Jackson is Head of Content at WeatherOptics and produces several forecasts and manages all social media platforms. Previously, Jackson forecasted local weather for southwestern Connecticut, founding his website, Jackson's Weather, in the March of 2015. He is currently studying Meteorology and Broadcast Journalism at the University of Miami.